Damn. I liked the Cleveland show... If anything I felt it lacked that original standout character concept like the 'talking evil genius baby' or the 'metrosexual/bisexual identity changing alien'. Like Peter is the star but Stewie is the it attraction. Stan is the star but Roger is the MVP. Shoot, with Family Guy you could prob make an argument that its both Stewie and Brian as the dog is just as absurd.
but with cleveland show, they didn't really have that 'original' outliner character to be the glue. I dont think they shoulda had the afro baby as he was too much like a stewie imitation by appearance, so he lacked the feel/look of originality and didnt have a distinguishable charm or absurd dynamic to him anyway.
Never cared for the bear/hick/short guy trio and i felt they should've gone a different route like they did with Stan where they gave him bullock and the cia people instead of tryna force an imitation of the '3 drinking buddies each from a different demographic' thing. American dad still did it in a way, but they gave that trio to Steve and based them in school.
Cleveland donna, and Jr. were cool but outside of them i felt they shoulda gave more original thought to the rest of the cast, like in creating the next 'stewie/roger' character dynamic , and finding an environment whether at work or where ever that would separate Cleveland from both Peter and Stan, instead of making it be a 'black family guy'.
Even with that said, i enjoyed a lot of the stories the show came up with, and digged how Adult Swim had Cleveland show/Black Dynamite and Boondocks back2back2back on weekends.